With the announcement yesterday that Georgia picked up its ninth verbal commitment for the class of 2008, this piece in The Sporting News by Mike Farrell is noteworthy.

… I wrote in a blog a year or so ago that the football recruiting process has sped up by about six full months over the past two or three years. In other words, players who used to be offered in June of their junior year in high school were now being offered in January. In the past 12 months or so, there is even greater speed and urgency to recruiting underclassmen. My best estimate is that the process is now a full nine months ahead of where it was in 2003. If you’re not a recruitnik and don’t follow, the bottom line is that things are speeding out of control.

As of March 1, the Texas Longhorns had 15 commitments for their 2008 recruiting class. Texas A&M also had 15. The majority of the players who committed to these programs won’t be on campus until the summer of 2009. Many of them won’t graduate from college until 2014. And, quite a few haven’t had their 17th birthday yet. Either I’m getting much older each year, or the players I speak to are getting much younger. I’m pretty sure it’s the latter…

Let me just say that it’s insane for any college coach to make a verbal offer to a 12 year old.

The time has come again to break out the fluffy and extra-absorbent crying towels. Those inevitably heartbroken come Sunday evening are already preparing their manifestos of outrage that a tragically flawed system has denied them their rightful destiny.

Except, “this dance with the illogical has nothing to do with the Bowl Championship Series.”

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s March Madness!

And with March Madness comes the Ratings Percentage Index, otherwise known as the RPI. And as Drew Sharp points out in this Detroit Free Pressarticle, there ain’t exactly a whole lot of difference between the RPI and math behind the BCS.

Money quote:

… The Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) exposes the vast holes in the hackneyed argument that college football should adopt college basketball’s more precise model in determining its champion.

The BCS and RPI are already mirror images of each other, in that computer infiltration has become a necessary evil in determining who gets the opportunity to play for the championship on the field. And, naturally, that sparks the subsequent cries of systematic inequities or political interference…

Before you can “settle it on the field”, as playoff advocates like to bray, you’ve got to pick who gets to show up in the first place. That’s why I continue to argue that there are flaws in any playoff format that have to be addressed before anointing it as new and improved over the current state of affairs in D-1 football.

And the bigger you make that playoff field, the more you magnify the flaws:

… But it always seems that the more money involved, the bigger the event becomes and the more fractured and disjointed the entire enterprise becomes.

And within that perspective, crowning a college basketball champion is no less controversial than crowning a football champion.

In anticipation of speaking at a FCA banquet in Virginia, Gailey had this to say about his course of action after Reggie Ball was declared academically ineligible:

“I fought for the young man and tried to help him in any way I could, but I wasn’t going to break any rules to do it,” said Gailey, who has been coaching football for 33 years. “There’s still right and wrong. Once you’ve made up your mind that’s how you’re going to live your life, it’s not that hard.”

Just to remind everyone, Dog capped a stellar career at Tech by going 15 for 51, with 171 yards passing, four interceptions, a fumble (returned for a TD) and no touchdowns in his last two games. Who goes to the mat for that?

Chan, I’m glad you can look in the mirror today, but if you’d cut corners to get this guy reinstated, it wouldn’t have been your morality that would have been questioned. Just your sanity.

Quote Of The Day

“The only thing he’s promised me is he’s going to play the best player and that’s the only promise I want,” (Justin) Fields said in an interview on WSB-TV. “I just feel like I bring another aspect to the game with my legs. They’re both great quarterbacks. Of course, they were five-stars in high school. They’re just like me, but I just feel like I bring something different to the table with my ability to run the ball. I always like a challenge, I always like competition. I feel like competition isn’t going to do anything but make another person better. I’m not afraid of a challenge.”– AB-H, 10/11/17